The core sentence in today's Washington Supreme Court decision in Marilou Rickert v. Washington seems unassailable, and it is: "The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter of truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment. Because RCW 42.17.530(1)(a) rests on the validity of this erroneous assumption, it must be struck down."
Here's the background:
In 2002, Ms. Rickert challenged incumbent Senator Tim Sheldon in the election for state senator from Washington's 35th Legislative District. During the campaign, Ms. Rickert sponsored a mailing that included a brochure comparing her positions to those of Senator Sheldon. In part, the brochure stated that Ms. Rickert "[s]upports social services for the most vulnerable of the state's citizens." Admin. Record (AR) at 10. By way of comparison, the brochure stated that Senator Sheldon "voted to close a facility for the developmentally challenged in his district." Id. In response to the latter statement, Senator Sheldon filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), alleging a violation of RCW 42.17.530(1)(a). RCW 42.17.530(1) provides, in relevant part:
It is a violation of this chapter for a person to sponsor with
actual malice:
(a) Political advertising or an electioneering
communication that contains a false statement of material fact
about a candidate for public office. However, this subsection
(1)(a) does not apply to statements made by a candidate or the
candidate's agent about the candidate himself or herself.
The law put a state agency, the PDC, in the position of deciding which candidates are telling the truth and which aren't. At best, that might logically be a job for a court; but more logically still, it ought to be a job for informed voters to discern. The strike-down of this law, on conceptual as opposed to technical grounds, is significant.